engine is in!

and fits!

just! :)

All joking aside, it took only a couple of hours to get the engine into a position I am happy with for now. There were no major dramas and it appears my CAD and cutting were accurate to within +/-5mm or so as I had hoped. 

The lump is just resting on stands for now but will allow me to put the final touches tot the engine and gearbox mounts, as well as beginning the interesting stuff like figuring out coolant, oil, fuel and exhaust routings, and measuring up for driveshafts.

Some evidence:

in this last shot you can see the beginnings of the gearbox mount bar.

more progress

in no particular order:

• rear suspension pick-ups refurbished.
• rear subframe bracing continued
• Cosworth Pi Omega D1 digital dash fitted
• bulkhead heat shielding nearly finished

pics:

Dash has integrated shift lights. Looking forward to experimenting the functionality once it's wired in.

I am very close now to being able to hoist the engine and gearbox into position for the first time. Just in the process of arranging crane and additional stands. It will be a big milestone. :-)

engine rebuild complete & gearbox connected

finished rebuilding the oil pump and fitting the sump, after which it was time to connect the gearbox, which, due to the layout of flywheel and clutch being at the back of the gearbox, should be the first and only time the engine and box need to be connected. They can stay together from now on... :-)

pictures:

This picture makes me pleased with how far I've come already!

Ferrari 360 fuel rails are fitted and also get some of the gold foil treatment.

bulkhead & fuel tank panelling 1

bulkhead construction is now complete, and the re-panelling around the cutout in the fuel tank area is 90% complete. Best to let the pictures tell the story:

  

managed to bend the entire V-section out of one panel. Looks neat!

 ultimately the entire bulkhead will be gold foil covered in order to minimise heat transfer through to the cockpit compartment.